No Easy Ride: A Biker Erotic Romance

This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.

No Easy Ride @ 2014 by Emily Stone. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

No Easy Ride

Ellie
let the hot water from the shower wash away her humiliation. God, what had she been thinking? The look on his face when they came up for air had nearly destroyed her. Talk about a confidence killer.

Sure, he hadn’t been alone in his shock over what they just did but dammit, did he have to look like he regretted it so much? He could have at least tried to make the effort to not appear so disgusted.

Regrets were better saved for huge life mistakes. This didn’t qualify and while it might hurt that he acted like such a jerk, she refused to dwell on it. In fact, she'd use the experience in one of her books. They always said to write what you know and now she knew what it was like to be rolled by a guy like Rex. Hot sex with a less than stellar exit strategy.

Besides, she hadn’t seen him in years when he showed up in her world tonight. It would most likely be years before she had to see him and face the humiliation all over again. Yes, this was definitely going in a book. Maybe there she could express the hurt she was refusing to let herself think about in her real life.

***

Rex was halfway home before he realized that he couldn’t leave things the way he had with Ellie. Talk about a train wreck. Sure, both of them had sudden realizations about whom they just had sex with but she handled it much more graciously than he had. Like a teenager, he threw on his clothes, made a ton of excuses and practically ran out the door. He came across as a real jerk.

He didn't regret a moment but there was no way to tell that by his reaction. Not only did he not regret it but he couldn’t stop thinking about her now that he was over the initial shock. Every reaction he had replayed in his mind like a movie.

It wasn’t just the sex either. It was the open and easy way she talked with him. How she really listened to what he said and seemed interested in his life. Yes, they shared a history but it had been so long since they saw each other that it was like meeting a whole new person.

Dammit, why was he so shocked in the first place? Didn't he make up his mind that he was going to have her while he was on that dance floor holding her in his arms? Maybe the shock was that she actually wanted him back. Women like Ellie didn’t go for men like him.

Relationships never worked for him. Not that he hadn’t tried, but to be honest, women didn’t see long term commitment in Rex. Well, he should say, the women he liked didn’t see him that way. The women at the club were always ready and willing. That was the problem; they were always ready and willing but not ready to commit that readiness to one man.

Growing up in a world where sex was as easy to get as a beer didn't exactly foster a good image of what the future might hold. His mom had jumped ship when he was a kid, unprepared for what life with his father Manny was really like. It was a surprise that she lasted as long as she did considering the way she was treated: like an outsider. Someone who didn’t belong.

The truth was that his mother didn't really belong. She was a nice girl from a good family, a nice girl who fell for the bad boy on a bike and got knocked up before she really knew whom she'd been sleeping with. When she realized she made a mistake, it was too late to fix things. So she took off and pretended her life with Manny--and the kid she gave birth to--didn’t exist.

When Rex was ten, he ran into her--completely by chance--at the little convenience store close to his school. He'd been skipping, thinking about shoplifting a couple of candy bars and heading over to the ditch to hang out until it was time to go home. She pulled up in a fancy little Mercedes convertible, wearing an expensive looking outfit and smelling like money.

At first, all he could do was stare at her. The woman he remembered changed little yet was a complete stranger. It was a temptation he couldn’t resist. Making himself look as big and grown up as possible, he walked right up to where she was pumping gas, leaned against that shiny car and proceeded to introduce himself.

She looked at him like he was a snake. There was no doubt that she recognized him, even before he opened his mouth. His resemblance to her was undeniable. She couldn’t get away from him fast enough.

She yelled at him and called him a mistake. He had been taught to be tough but the rejection still hurt.

After that day, Rex became a real handful. Getting into trouble was his only outlet for all the hurt his mother caused. He skipped school more, got into fights over stupid things and began stealing. He didn’t care about much of anything.

His father Manny didn't know how to deal with him other than to kick his ass on a regular basis. Rex deserved what he got most days, but other times, not so much. It had made for a tense and violent home life... until Manny was locked up.

Rex soon found himself in the foster system. The first placement had been a nightmare but he survived it. It didn’t take him long to figure out how to get kicked out and sent someplace new. He went through three homes before he turned fifteen. His last placement was the one that changed everything for him.

They were good people. Caring and understanding why he was so angry even when they didn’t know the whole story. They were older, in their fifties when he came to them, with at least twenty other foster kids under their belt. They were patient with his outbursts, talking to him instead of yelling or using physical punishments.

He learned that acting out wasn’t going to get him the kind of life he longed for. They became an example of what a real family could be. What he could have if he wanted it.

Then he met Ellie. The one person who had been his only friend, the one person who never gave up on him even when all the other kids did.

From that day on he worked on being a better person. They took him to see Manny on a regular basis so that he could rebuild some kind of relationship with the one parent who could still look him in the eye. They talked to him about what he wanted when his dad got out. For a while, he actually considered leaving it all behind and asking his dad to let his foster parents adopt him.

It hadn’t worked out that way, of course. Manny sucked him back into the life the minute Rex turned eighteen. That didn’t mean that Rex forgot the lessons his foster parents had taught him. He kept the ideal of family and commitment as a possibility for the future. His future.

When he saw Ellie again, that tempting image of the future flitted across his mind--so quickly that he would've missed it if he blinked but his eyes remained wide-open and he saw it.

He could have both. His lifestyle and a family. It wasn’t clear yet exactly how that would work, but he had to believe that it was possible.

***

After a restless night, Ellie got up early and decided to spend the day writing. It was the best way to deal with all the emotional turmoil of the night before. She made coffee and took a large mug into her living room, settling down at her desk.

While she waited on her laptop to start up, she opened all the curtains and windows to let in some fresh air. The temperature was perfect and the smell of freshly cut grass made her smile.

She didn’t bother getting dressed or fixing her hair. It was Saturday and the only place she needed to be was at her house, working. Even if any of her friends called to invite her out she was turning them down. She still had yesterday’s chapters to finish and she could use the time today to get ahead.

It was unfortunate that she stopped yesterday in the middle of a very important sex scene. Picking up where she left off and
not
remembering last night was going to be tough. Her mind kept wandering, leaving her feeling unsettled.

Piling her hair on top of her head, she secured it with an ink pen and put her glasses on, trying to get serious about finishing up what she started so she could move on. It still wasn’t working. The characters that she'd been lovingly developing suddenly felt flat and boring.

Closing her eyes, she let her mind see the characters as real people, like a movie playing out that she had to transcribe onto the page. It didn’t hit her until the scene was nearly done that she was recounting her night with Rex.

She read back what she typed and was surprised to see how good it was. There were a few spelling and grammatical errors but they were easily fixed.

Except...

Rex’s name was dotted across the pages where the old male lead's name used to be. A couple of clicks of her mouse and a few quick strokes on the keyboard would take care of that little mistake. Yet it felt harder than she expected and when she saw Rex disappear from the page, Ellie would be lying if she didn't feel a twinge of sadness.

***

It was way too early to be back. He had no clue what he was going to say to make up for what he did last night. Some people weren’t good with words and he was definitely on that list.

Her neighborhood was quiet and the roar of his bike sounded obscene. He parked and looked up at the front of her house. From where he sat, he saw her sitting at her desk facing the bank of windows in the front of the house. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy knot and a pair of glasses rested on her nose. Rex forgot that she wore glasses to read.

Getting off the bike, Rex walked up the path to her front door. Her windows were open and he could hear the rapid tapping of her fingers on a keyboard. She must be working. He almost turned around and got back on the bike, but the closer he got to the front the more it looked like she was typing with her eyes closed.

She
was
typing with her eyes closed. Eyes closed, breathing hard and her cheeks were flushed a very familiar pink. While he watched she finished and sat back, obviously reading what she just wrote. She made some quick movements with her fingers on the mouse pad then smiled--a sad smile yet she looked satisfied.

***

The doorbell rang just as Ellie was getting up to refill her coffee cup. Seeing as how she wasn’t dressed, she thought about ignoring it. She really wasn’t up for a visit from anyone right now. Peeking out the window she saw a familiar blood-red bike in her driveway.

Pulling open the door, she kept her lower body hidden. “Rex? What are you doing here?”

“I was thinking, maybe, that you, I mean—can I talk to you?” He stuttered like a shy little boy.

“I’m not really dressed for company, Rex.”

“Please.” The word stuck in his throat, like it always did. He might have learned to say it but it was still a struggle to get it out.

“Okay, come on in.” She stepped back and opened the door, still hiding behind it.

“If you want to go get dressed, I can wait.” Rex didn’t pretend he wasn’t looking, because he was. Ellie wore an old Fabulous Thunderbirds t-shirt and a pair of panties that looked like very short-shorts with a pair of hands printed on them so it looked like they were grabbing her rear. They were so outrageous that he couldn't help grinning.

Determined not to feel self-conscious, Ellie shook her head and straightened her shoulders. “It’s a little late to pretend like you haven’t seen me in less.” She moved into the living room and waited for him to follow.

He sat down on the couch and tried to ignore the fact that it was still a little mussed up from the night before. Instead he looked around her space, taking it in. It suited her—not too girly; earthy colors and very neat.

“So what exactly did you come back for, Rex?” She leaned against her desk, crossing her arms under her breasts.

She was clearly annoyed. Not that he didn’t deserve it, but it made it harder for him to say what he wanted to say. He couldn’t sit still. Getting up he moved around to the area behind the couch then began to pace. “I really messed up last night.”

Ellie’s back stiffened at his words. Talk about adding insult to injury. He came all this way to tell her what a mistake he made? How perfect.

“I didn’t mean to come off like--” He stopped pacing and scrubbed his hands over his face in clear frustration. “When we were kids, you were the only friend I had. No one else liked me because I was such an asshole.”